


Velaska's Watch

by Sliceofmooncake (Aesoteric)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: False Identity, Gen, Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 17:49:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5173481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aesoteric/pseuds/Sliceofmooncake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Disclaimer: Spoilers for Blackwall's quests</p>
<p>The most dangerous enemy isn't necessarily the one that kills you, but the one that knows you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Velaska's Watch

Blackwall heard rather than saw Cassandra go down, there was a crunch of metal and a grunt that he knew came from carrying that shield she favored. Damnit. He and Varric were the only ones left and Varric wasn’t a hand-to-hand fighter. The hurlocks had come out of nowhere, jumped over the chasm like it was nothing and swarmed the four of them like bees. The Inquisitor had gone down by the stairs trying to take out the archers, and he hadn’t even had the chance to go back and see if she was still breathing. He bashed the darkspawn with his shield trying to knock it over but the thing would not--go--down. It smelled like something dead, something rotten, and there was nothing worth saving behind those red eyes. It hated him, hated him to its core and he hated it right back, Joining or no Joining. 

“Varric!” Blackwall yelled, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off the thing in front of him as he blocked a slash. “Varric, you still standing?”

“Almost--shit, these things won’t _die_!”

“Hang on!” He backed towards Varric’s voice. “I’ll take it, fall back to the doorway and keep firing!”

“Can’t, there’s too many.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw Varric swing his crossbow like a club and crack a darkspawn on the side of the head. “Too close. I don’t think--” 

The dwarf gasped and slumped to the ground under a hurlock’s claws. Damnit, damnit to the Void and back, there was no one left. Fine. Blackwall smashed into the hurlock that took out Varric, rushing it off its feet and brought his axe down once, twice, then he had to jerk it out to tackle the next one. Slash, shove, block, his muscles were screaming and his head was spinning but he was not going down yet. Not yet. Another hurlock crumpled, steaming guts exposed to the air. The big one next. 

He shifted the axe in his grasp and braced himself as the thing came howling at him. This was the alpha: better armor, stronger, smarter--he whirled around as it tried to push him towards the edge of the chasm. He got a direct hit to its ribcage and it only laughed and brought a double-handed warhammer around in a brutal swing that he barely managed to catch. Behind the spiked helmet it bared its teeth and a cracked, hissing voice came through,

“Warden’s armor, but no Warden.” 

The words shocked him more than the blow that followed, knocking him to the ground. He barely managed to roll out of the way just as the hammer smashed into the floor beside him, spraying dirt and stone fragments. 

“We know Wardens, we smell them. Scent of Old Blood.” It licked its teeth. “But not you.”

“Shut up, you piece of filth.” Blackwall swung for the gap in the armor between leg and groin and the hurlock screamed, falling back a step and dripping black blood. He scrambled to his feet and followed it, slicing at the clawed hands that gripped the warhammer. It caught the blow on the handle and tried to force him back.

“They don’t know, do they? Can’t tell. But we can.” 

He stepped aside and smashed his shield into its face. Blinded by the blood in its eyes it staggered a minute and he drove the spike on his axe’s head into its chest armor. Maker, help me. The armor groaned and staved inwards and the hurlock made a wet, choking noise and its grip on the warhammer loosened until it hung from one hand. Face to face with the thing, it stared into his eyes.

“Liar, false.” It spat the words at him like acid, blood dribbling from its mouth. “Fake.”

Blackwall jerked the spike free and brought the axe around in one last desperate swing, severing the hurlock’s head from its shoulders. The body slumped, knees buckling, and it crumpled to the ground, the clatter of armor sending echoes bouncing off the walls. Blackwall wanted to go down with it. There wasn’t a muscle in his body that wasn’t shaking with fatigue, but if he went down he might not be able to get back up. Pushing himself off a pile of rubble, he staggered to where the Inquisitor lay and grabbed for her wrist. There was still a pulse. He patted her cheek roughly,

“Hey, hey, wake up.”

She groaned in response and it had to be the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. He pulled her into a sitting position and fumbled a healing potion from her belt, unstopping it with one thumb. She sputtered and choked on the first sip but swallowed.

“Cassandra? Varric?”

“Don’t know yet.”

She gritted her teeth and rolled onto her side, pushing herself up with her hands. “Go. Get Cassandra. I’ll get Varric.” She stumbled towards where the dwarf had gone down. “Varric! Varric Tethras, talk to me!”

Somehow Blackwall made it to the fallen Seeker, pushing off her helmet and tilting her head back to pour potions down her throat until she twitched and her eyes fluttered open. 

“C’mon, Seeker, it’s over.”

From behind him he heard Varric let out a stream of truly impressive expletives and Blackwall let his head slump to his chest. All of them. Maker’s breath, all of them. Just this once. Cassandra’s throat worked her mouth trembled as she tried to form words.

“I was careless.”

Blackwall barked a harsh laugh,

“Only you would apologize for being nearly killed by darkspawn. Let’s go back to Skyhold, I think we could use the services of a healer.”

“And an armorer or two.” From the way Varric and the Inquisitor were leaning on each other it wasn’t clear who was supporting whom, but they were upright at least. Blackwall brought Cassandra’s arm around his neck and helped her lift herself to standing. She barely looked capable of retrieving her weapons but from the jut of her chin she wasn’t going to let him help. Something caught the corner of his eye, and once he was sure Cassandra was steady on her feet, he made his way over to the left-hand wall. He’d seen something nearly buried under dust and rubble, a flash of metal. He brushed aside debris until he uncovered a book, small and leatherbound with a clasp that looked like a silver griffin. 

“Velaska. This must have been hers.”

“Did you know her?” The Inquisitor’s voice was so gentle he couldn’t bear to look at her.

“No, but she had to have been a brave woman.” He tucked it into the crook of his arm and turned around to see the other three staring at the remains of the darkspawn. “What?” 

“Did you…All of them?” Varric was actually gaping at the carnage on the floor. “Ho-ly shit.”

“That was an alpha. You took it on by yourself?” He couldn’t read Cassandra’s expression but he hunched his shoulders and turned away.

“Yeah, well, next one’s yours. Let’s get out of here.”

 

Hours or days later, Blackwall was in the stables with the chest he’d commissioned is on the table in front of him. He laid Velaska’s journal and her key on a layer of linen before folding it in quarters and tucking it away alongside a sword, torn journal pages, a vial of darkspawn blood, a badge, a history of the Wardens, a joining chalice and a cuirass. That was all that was left of the Grey Warden encampments over five districts in both Ferelden and Orlais. There’d been no bodies to burn, no proper funeral rites for any of them assuming they were dead. And he was assuming. They’d never have abandoned their posts otherwise. 

He’d had each side of the chest detailed with a griffon sitting to attention; it was a piss-poor memorial for the fallen Wardens but it was the best he could do. He’d have carved it himself but he didn’t think he’d do it justice. Blackwall didn’t know the names of the men and women these had belonged to except for Velaska, but he’d send the chest back to Weisshaupt with a report detailing where he’d found them, and maybe the Warden Commanders would be able to identify the remains. A better thing to do would be to take it there himself; there was a chance he’d be caught out, but there’d be justice in that. He scrubbed at his eyes. He hadn’t known darkspawn were capable of speech. They shouldn’t be. They’re mindless, unnatural things that want to cover the world in Blight, they aren’t people. But it had known, somehow. False. Liar. 

“Now, there is the sigh of a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.” Varric stood in the doorway, looking cheerful as a man who’d almost died a few hours ago can. “Why so glum? We found the last of your Warden artifacts today and avoided dying again. Lemme buy you a drink.”

“Thanks, but I’m not really in the mood right now.”

“Since when are you not in the mood for a drink? C’mon, I’ve got the latest jousting scores.” He waved a rolled-up parchment in the air enticingly. “You know you want ‘em.” 

Varric obviously wasn’t going to go away, and maybe an ale or two would numb him up for the rest of the night.

“Fine. You’re buying.”

“Already said I was.”

Conversation stopped and every head turned to look at him when he and Varric entered Herald’s Rest. For a split second he thought he was walking into an ambush and was reaching for an axe he hadn’t brought with him when someone began to thump their tankard against the table.

“Black. Wall. Black. Wall. Black. Wall.” Other voices and other objects joined the rising clamor until the entire inn was shouting “Blackwall” and right there in the middle of it all was the Inquisitor smiling at him and banging along with the rest. Aw, hell. He turned to leave but the door was blocked and well-wishers laughed at him as if it were a great joke.

“Oh, no you don’t. Get back here and take your accolades like a man.” Varric pulled him through the roaring crowd to the bar and yelled “Somebody buy this Warden a drink or twelve!” 

Cabot pushed a tankard into his hand and there was nothing to do but take it and try to avoid being crushed as everyone else clamored to put their orders in. Blackwall had barely managed to get out of the way before Sera was clinging to his back like a monkey and people he barely knew were crowding around to shake his hand.

“I’d like to propose a toast to Warden Blackwall.” Blackwall’s stomach sank. Varric had managed to climb onto a table and was holding his cup in the air. “The man who saved all our asses today--even yours, Seeker--” there was a patter of laughter and Cassandra rolled her eyes good-naturedly, “by being crazy enough to take on darkspawn by himself, and stubborn enough to succeed. To Blackwall!”

“Blackwall!” The tavern roared and patrons smashed their tankards together, liquid flying. Shame boiled in his gut and he kept his eyes on his drink. They were toasting the wrong man--or maybe the right one, even though they didn’t know it. He swallowed and tried not to look like he was in pain as members of the Inquisition came around to congratulate him. The Iron Bull’s clap on the shoulder nearly sent him sprawling.

“A hurlock alpha, not bad! Next time you want to do something stupid, give me a call. I’ll find us something big.”

“I think one near-death experience is enough for now, don’t you?” Cassandra was actually smiling and she clasped Blackwall’s arm below the elbow. “Good work today. I was glad to have you at my back.”

“Just doing my duty.”

“There wouldn’t have been an Inquisition anymore if you hadn’t done what you did. I won’t forget that.” 

“And he’s single, ladies!” Varric sang out and everyone erupted into laughter. Blackwall couldn’t help thinking for of dusky skin and yellow silk for a split second before the nausea came back doubly strong. Damnit. There was no getting out of this, so at least...he raised his tankard and yelled,

“For the Wardens!”

The crowd roared back at him and he swallowed the sour burn of the ale all the way down.


End file.
